Private hospital hoping to offer paediatric heart surgery at no cost to patients

Aug 29, 2013 News

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Having successfully completed two paediatric cardiac operations last weekend, the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital is looking to collaborate with the Ministry of Health to sustain the service at literally no cost to patients.
Administrator of the privately operated East Street, Georgetown, facility, Dr Madhu Singh, told this publication that it is expected that paediatric surgical operations, including the two completed, will be compensated with the US$5,000 that is usually made available by the Ministry to patients seeking overseas medical care.

Officials of the hospital disclosed that a meeting with Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, was set for yesterday to discuss the proposed collaboration but it did not materialise since the Minister was reportedly otherwise engaged.
However, Dr Singh disclosed that she has already written to Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, and “we are hoping to engage them in some form of discussion shortly.”
However, Dr Ramsaran in an invited comment yesterday said that while he is not aware of any plan to collaborate with the private hospital, the Ministry of Health will be happy to support any health facility that offers a certifiable and accredited service to the nation.
In fact, the Minister in commenting on the meeting that was set for yesterday, disclosed that “I am a bit surprise that it was about collaboration, I thought I was going to endorse what they are doing and meet the children who were operated on.”
However, he did note that the Ministry of Health is open to fund operations at the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital, or any other private hospital, once the standard operating procedure meets the acceptable requirements.  “Our patients can get help wherever…we have worked along with the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital before for cases of kidney transplant where we offered some funding.”
“We are also supporting these kidney patients at that hospital with medications…once we don’t have the capacity, we will work with any private sector facility once it has been certified… this is serious business,” asserted the Minister.
He noted that the issue of paramount concern will always be certification of health facilities. “The issue that we need to be discussing now, at a higher level, is how do we certify these facilities? Are they giving the service that we are hoping to pay for? While the service might be good, we need it to be certified first,” insisted Dr Ramsaran.

He pointed out too that while paying for a service is crucial, there are other aspects that must be examined, such as follow-up care and management, something that has already been established in terms of the kidney transplant service being offered.
According to the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital Administrator, Dr Singh, close to US$1 million was expended to ensure that the facility is furnished with state-of-the-art technologically advanced equipment to conduct cardiac surgery, which has facilitated about 150 coronary angiograms and more than 30 angioplasties, pacemakers implants and even a rare aortic stenting procedure.
Added to this, she said, the hospital has the expertise of Cardiac Surgeon, Dr Ratan Kumas Das, who has many years of experience in the field. He currently functions as the Senior Consultant Cardiac Thoracic Surgeon at a Super Specialty Hospital in Kolkata, India.
And since he has the capabilities to perform cardiac operations on both children and adults, Dr Singh noted that “this is a big plus…There are cardiac surgeons who specialise in one or the other and so not all are able to do both as Dr Das.” Last weekend, he also successfully conducted an off-pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft on a 71-year-old patient.
While the Caribbean Heart Institute, which is situated in the compound of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, has been offering cardiac care mainly to adults, Dr Singh disclosed that a large number of patients with cardiac anomaly are in fact children. As such, she considers the move to offer paediatric cardiac care locally is in fact an important development for Guyana.  “We have, I think, a lot of kids waiting in this country to go away and have this surgery done…I know of one set of five or six kids who will shortly be taken away (overseas) by Three Rivers (Foundation) but the truth is, they don’t need to go any more because they can have it done right here,” said Dr Singh.
She noted that efforts are likely to be made to collaborate with the Three Rivers Foundation too, which has for many years been facilitating the travel of children overseas for heart surgeries.
Such collaboration, Dr Singh said, could see the realisation of a number of advantages, which will include the fact that follow-up care will be available right at the East Street hospital.
But according to her, “discussions with the Ministry of Health is key to this whole process and therefore quite important…We wanted to get some operations done then speak to them (Ministry of Health officials) so that we don’t make any claims that we can’t fulfil.”
And once the cardiac programme does well, there is a possibility that Dr Das will relocate to Guyana to offer his expert service.
His recent trip here saw him travelling with a supporting team, including an Anaesthetist, a Cardiovascular Perfusionist and an Assistant Surgeon, whose services may very well be replaced with full-time professionals, once the programme is sustained.
The recent paediatric operations were undertaken on two sisters- five-year-old Tiana and three-year-old Gayona – both of whom had holes in their hearts. They were both diagnosed with Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA), which is characterised by an abnormal blood flow between two of the major arteries connected to the heart.
They both developed cold-like symptoms early on and one had become so severely ill that had the operation been delayed much longer, it would have been inoperable, according to Dr Das.
He noted too that neither operation was very difficult and together lasted a period of about four hours.
Both girls are recovering at the hospital and were yesterday being attended to by their mother Moushimi Bisoondyal and their maternal grandmother Gaitree Balgobin also known as Krishna. “They are both doing well,” said Dr Das of the young girls, even as he noted that “they can have normal lives now with the exception of a scar.”
Screening for paediatric cardiac patients will continue at the hospital until Saturday when Dr Das is scheduled to depart these shores.
He is expected to return within two months to undertake about 10 more operations on both adults and children.

 

 

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